Passenger transportation vehicles such as aircraft often provide beverage and meal service to passengers. Airline attendants often wheel trolleys through aircraft aisles in order to offer various selections. These trolleys are often referred to as meal/drink or meal/beverage trolleys. These types of trolleys are generally provided with an interior compartment designed to support and receive one or more trays or slidable bins. Trolleys may be provided as full size trolleys or half size trolleys. The trolleys may be cooled via dry ice contained within the trolley. For example, an upper compartment may provide a storage place for dry ice in the top of the trolley. The dry ice compartment has a stationary base that supports the dry ice block. The dry ice may be accessible via a flap or a pull out tray. In other examples, an envelope or hollow cubby area is provided in the upper portion of the trolley and a dry ice block is slid therein.
Other types of trolleys are cooled in the galley using an air chiller system, such as an air over system (which function similar to a refrigerator) or an air through system (which blows cold air into the trolley). Such air over and air through systems do not have dry-ice drawers, but a deep top area. Once beverage and meal service is concluded, the meal/drink trolleys are stowed in the galley, and waste service begins.
For waste collection, attendants may simply carry a plastic bag for collection of waste and other waste items. However, if meals were served on trays, then trays need to be collected as well. In order to facilitate waste collection as well as tray collection, a supported trash bag or trash bin may be positioned within the interior compartment. One example of such a bag is illustrated by FIG. 27, and is referred to as a flex-e-bag. In other examples, a foldable cardboard waste bin may be positioned within the interior compartment. An example of this embodiment is illustrated by FIG. 28. In both instances, the top of the trolley provides a closed worktop that is used to collect trays. Trash is collected into the interior bin. However, the passengers have full view of the waste bin. This can be undesirable from a sanitary standpoint. The interior of these trolleys may not always be aesthetically pleasing. This design also requires that the attendants continually bend to insert trash into the lower part of the interior compartment. This is not ergonomically desirable and can lead to musculoskeletal strain injuries due to repetitive bending and kneeling. Further, the cardboard waste bins can be expensive, leading to higher recurring costs for the airline operator. Another challenge with using these types of trolleys for waste collection is that trays stacked too high on the top of the trolley can pose a safety hazard. However, if trays are stacked in the top of the interior compartment (above the waste bin), they may interfere with the waste collection process.
In other examples, a specifically designed waste trolley may be used. Normally, a waste trolley has trash flaps in its top and may also have a trash flap in the door. These flaps can be opened in order to receive waste into the interior of the trolley compartment. A heavy waste bin or waste bag may be used inside the trolley. In this instance, two types of trolleys must be stored in the aircraft galley. The meal/drink trolley is used to serve food and drinks while the waste trolley sits empty and unused in the galley during beverage and meal service. It is only used during the second half of the process, for waste collection. This is undesirable from a logistical standpoint, as well as the time and cost that it is required to organize two different trolleys. The system also requires more room in the galley. This is space that could be used for other goals such as sales trolleys or more passenger seats. The additional trolleys also add to the weight of the aircraft. Accordingly, improvements are desirable. The improvements described herein are useable with any of the above-described types of trolleys (such as trolleys using a dry ice compartment, trolleys using an air over/air through system and having a deep top, full or half size trolleys) as well as with any other types of trolleys that would benefit from being convertible between service and waste collection trolleys.